Pekarek's Produce

Announcing the 2016 Pekarek’s Produce CSA

We are excited here at Pekarek’s Produce to announce the 2016 CSA! Pekarek’s Produce invites you to receive fresh, seasonal, flavorful, healthful vegetables. We select vegetable varieties for their taste, raise them under the best possible conditions, pick them at the peak of ripeness, and carefully wash and pack them for you.

2015 wk 9

Pekarek’s Produce CSA involves pre-payment for a full share ($22.00 per week) or a partial share ($13.00 per week) of produce. Each week, June 1 through September 28, we throw in a few extra dollars worth of extra produce over the regular retail price, so you get a fantastic value for what you pay.

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PICK-UP DETAILS

This year we will be offering four pick up locations on Wednesdays:

On the Farm (after 1 pm)
Winter Wonderland in Seward, NE (4-7 pm)
Schillingbridge Cork & Tap – Fallbrook Neighborhood in Lincoln (4-7 pm)
Nebraska Heart Institute—South Lincoln (4-7 pm)

BOX SIZES

Choose between two share sizes to receive in your deliveries. Our full share size typically contains a variety of vegetables similar to those in the sample boxes. The partial share will have half the vegetables found in the full share.

COST OF MEMBERSHIP

Full Share—$400

Partial Share—$240

2015 PP Tour2 — 2015 Pekarek’s Produce CSA Members take a Hayrack Ride during a farm tour

HOW DO I SIGN UP

Fill out the Membership Form, complete with your information and mail with your payment to Pekarek’s Produce, 2447 Road ‘O’, Dwight, NE 68635.

Want to pay electronically? Go to Popmoney.com. If it is your first time, enter your phone number on the front screen. The next screen will ask for your information. Once you are signed up, you will be taken to a screen called “Send Money” Type in “Ryan Pekarek” then use the phone number 402-641-3305.Type in the amount ($240 or $400) and the date. In the “For” box, type in CSA Payment.

A Muddy Mess

It’s beautiful outside! The sun is shining and the wind is blowing. It makes the plastic on the greenhouses flap and slap like living things. Everything around here is brown and muddy, not a bit of green. But it’s time to change that!

It’s been a muddy mess around here. It’s been fun just even getting to the greenhouses and we’ve had pull 2 children out of the mud.

Ryan has been making a few changes in the greenhouses to make planting easier. Benches have been moved and the planting list has been made. Ryan has seeds laid out and trays filled. All of the different colored bags on the table in this picture represent seed coming from several different companies. It never fails that each year there is a seed that is discontinued in one company but not the other. Sometimes we want to trial some new varieties and we end up buying several varieties from multiple companies.

Feb Seeds.jpeg

The strings have been strung in the greenhouse. Tomato plants are still in a small cell, but will be soon be moved to the larger pots in the greenhouse and climb up the strings (with a little help of course).

Cucumbers were seeded in the greenhouse today. They too will be trained to climb the strings.

It doesn’t look like much yet, but Ryan has seeded much of the high tunnels already using his new seeder. More on that toy later, but for now we have the seeds planted in the tunnel and covered with row cover. It’s kind of like tucking in a seed with a blanket.

Hopefully next week, we will be able to share some pictures of green things growing.

~Katie

It Snowed!

It’s been interesting around here, to say the least. Sometimes the weather people miss the prediction by a million miles and other times – they nail it!

We were definitely spared the worst of last week’s storm. We are guessing we ended up in the 6 to 7 inch range. It’s a bit hard to tell because some places had no snow on the ground and other places had 5 or 6 feet.

Luckily, we have not turned on the greenhouse yet! Ryan keeps threatening that we will have to go scoop or push snow off of the buildings when we get in trouble. We bought new shovels this year, so I’m not too scared.

DSCN4038 — Drifts Blowing Around Tunnels

In vegetable news… the tomatoes are up in the greenhouse. They are already about 3 inches tall.

We have 99% of the seed for the spring here already, so Ryan says “we have enough to get to farmin’.” He has spent the nice days in January getting the tunnels tilled, watered and ready to go. It looks like we could have two or two and a half tunnels seeded within the next two weeks.

Radishes, Spinach, Lettuce, Tomatoes, Beets and Carrots will be seeded in the greenhouse early next week.

20110311 Soil

We are expecting many supplies to arrive in the next week: plastic mulch, drip tape, trays, soil, tags, knives, rubber gloves, boxes, and more…

photo(4) — Jacob on a pallet of soil in 2015

Don’t forget – if you know someone who wants to work on their *tan* this summer, tell them to call Ryan. Pekarek’s Produce officially has its “Help Wanted” sign out!

Winter 2015 (3 of 3)

High tunnels are always an interesting topic around here. Last winter (2014/2015) we were outside in coveralls building high tunnels. In spring of 2015 we were hurriedly finishing everything up for the growing season, so we took a couple of short cuts on the high tunnels.

They should each have roll-up or roll-down sides, but some have been tacked up in a more permanent fashion. This winter we have been working to remedy this so that they are easier to manage.

The packing shed is getting quite a bit of attention this winter as well. Usually I am the one who gets frustrated with all of the mud and dirt everywhere. I know, it’s a an effort in futility – mud on the farm is more than a little important. But this winter, Ryan has been putting a lot of effort into cleaning and reorganizing the packing shed. So he is the one who doesn’t like it when I bring mud in on the 4 wheeler 🙂

This year we will be hiring another one or two full time workers to lighten the load of Joel, Joe and the summer crew. Is your New Year’s resolution to lose weight, get a tan, or be outside more? If so, kill two birds with one stone and apply with us at Pekarek’s Produce!

Finally, we do this more than any other time of the year – we plan! And we plan and we plan and plan and plan and plan…. The spaghetti squash you buy in October or November was ordered in December of the year before. In January we thoroughly thought about where it would be planted, when to plant it, what we would plant next to it, where we would drive the four wheeler when we harvested, how and when we would water it and even how we would display it at market.

Winter 2015 (2 of 3)

Drip Irrigation on Lettuce in High Tunnel

In December, the outdoor farming activities began to slow down. The high tunnels kept producing and we worked on improving our winter storage abilities. Early winter saw us digging (and picking up by HAND) the rest of the potatoes in the field.

It’s time for us to start working on the 2016 CSA. We’ve already had some pre-sales and are looking to expand to another location this year. More news to come very soon as we make plans, order seeds, and order new bags or boxes.

Ryan has spent weeks looking at seed catalogues. He usually ends up, ordering from 5 or 6 companies. Seed potatoes come from one place, sweet potato slips come from another locations, onions from another, and then there is the inevitable search for certain varieties of vegetables that no longer exit.

We still haven’t figured out why we can spend years trying out different varieties of broccoli until we find our favorite ones only to have the company discontinue the seed!

Even though the temperature is below zero today and probably not going to reach 10 oF, much of the seed has started arriving. As soon as the tomato seed shows up, we will be in the greenhouse planting… we’d like to have it sooner than later. Most everything else will get planted in the greenhouse in about 2 weeks.

Next week: High tunnels, packing shed, crew

Winter 2015 (1 of 3)

Well folks, it’s catch up time on the blog. We often get the question in the winter – what do you do? It’s kind of a crazy question to us, because from our view there seems to be no end to the work! So in the next few weeks we will get you caught up on what’s been happening in October, November, December – and let you know what we are doing now!

The CSA ended at the end of September and so did the blog posts, but there was a lot of activity in the end of the year. Farmer’s markets continued into the end of October and as usual, we had a lot of fun with pumpkins and squash.

Most of the year, we watched the pumpkins in disbelief – they looked horrible. We had a wet spring and got in late, then we had some pretty good heat. It turned out that the varieties that usually do poorly did great! The ones that usually do great did poorly.

Ryan and Joel at November 22, 2015 in Lincoln

We had two successful winter markets in November and December. This was the first time we have done these markets and we had a great time! Thank you to all of you who attended.

December 13, 2015 Market – Butternut Squash, Acorn Squash, Sunshine Squash, Kabocha Squash, Spaghetti Squash, Broccoli, Salad Mix, Spinach, Kale, Turnips, Red & Orange Beets, Carrots, Potatoes

We are really hoping to expand these in the future and they have given us thoughts on a winter CSA centered around holidays. Take a look at these pictures and check out all the produce we still had at this time of the year.

Next week: CSAs and seed orders. We are excited for this year’s CSA!!

Week 18 – 2015 Pekarek’s Produce CSA

Hey Folks,

Wow! Can you believe this is the last week of the 2015 CSA? We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have. In this final week, please make sure you take a pie pumpkin. Some of you have made dozens if not hundreds of pies using fresh pumpkins. But for others of you, this may be the first time don’t crack open a can to start making your pumpkin pie. Don’t be scared… you can set that pumpkin on your porch or table for a long time a as a decoration.

When you are done decorating, take a sharp knife and cut the pumpkin in half.

Scoop out the seeds and set them aside – you can rinse those off and bake them for a great snack. Now quarter the pumpkin and take the stem off. There are many ways to cook the pumpkin. Many people like to steam them in a double boiler, but I prefer to bake mine in the oven. I place the pumpkin quarters in a 9X13 baking dish, put a ¼ inch of water on the bottom, and then bake at 350^oF for about an hour, until I can poke a fork easily through the skin and meat.

Let the pumpkin quarters cool enough to handle. Then place them in a food processor or use a stick blender to create your pumpkin puree.

Now, you can use your fresh pumpkin for anything where a recipe calls for canned pumpkin – only it tastes better!! Personally, I like to cook several pumpkins (or squash) at a time, then blend them up and store 16 oz portions in freezer bags for use in everything from brownies and muffins to soups and chili.

Now the other interesting item you will find in some of your CSA bags is orange beets. They taste similar to a red beet, but have less of an earthy flavor. Cook them the same as you would any other beet. Ryan and the kids like them best baked with butter and salt, but I think they do well as a slice on a sandwich.

We have enjoyed having each of you participate in this year’s Pekarek’s Produce CSA. In a few weeks, we will send you a survey to see how we can improve for next year. But you don’t have to wait until next year to come see us. We will be at the Seward Farmer’s Market through October 31, the Lincoln Haymarket Farmer’s Market through October 10 and you can stop on the farm any time. Thank you all for a great year!

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew

What’s In this Week’s Bag?

Pie Pumpkin

Cucumbers

Orange Beets*

Broccoli

Tomatoes

Cauliflower

*indicates items only in the full bag

2016 CSA – Week 14

Hey Folks,

This week has a little bit of a “farming as usual” feel to it. We no longer farm dawn until dusk – now it’s more like sun up to “whenever we turn the lights off.” I’m not sure I appreciate the person who decided it is a good idea to have lights on a tractor, or maybe at all! It’s not nearly as romantic as it seems.

A few of you did not receive your mini sweet peppers last week – I’m sorry. I’m not sure where my head was, but hopefully we got everyone squared away. If we didn’t please let me know!

We are once again having a less than wonderful year for onions. Last year we had so many small hail events that every time a small piece of hail would hit the onion, that layer would start rotting while the next layer would grow up around it. So we would not even be able to tell that something bad was going on until we cut into it. This year we’ve had weed issues and soft tops, so a lot of onions haven’t made it in from the field.

We’ve started harvesting radishes for the fall again. We’ve also begun harvesting lettuce, so it will be salad season soon. Unfortunately, tomato production has slowed way down again and the watermelon season will end rather quickly. We tore out five rows of tomatoes this week as the plants were finished. We’ve had some of the best tasting watermelon we’ve ever grown this season, but we’ve never seen them stop producing quite like this. The plants simply started to shrivel up and die in a matter of days instead of the normal slow and gradual decline. We think the tomatoes that we’ve kept in the field will start producing again, but it looks like the end of watermelon season is upon us.

Ryan spent some quality time with the shredder this week. Much of this time of year is now figuring out what is worth keeping and what is not. Onion patches, rotting watermelons and cantaloupe, old corn plants, and anything else that was not deemed worthy did not survive the week. There is more of this to come!

Just a friendly reminder, please return your bags each week 🙂

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and small Crew

What’s in this week’s bag?

Cantaloupe**

Watermelon*

Bell Peppers

Mini Sweet Peppers*

Potatoes

Eggplant*

Zucchini**

*indicates items only in the full bag

**indicates items only in partial bag

Week 11 – 2015 Pekarek’s Produce CSA

Hey Folks!

It’s hard to believe that it’s that time again… time when the days begin to get shorter, the nights may cool off, and the kiddos go back to school. This week marks the start of a new school year for our children who are entering pre-school, Kindergarten, and 2^nd grades as well as most of our crew. We are glad to say that some of our crew will be starting their first year in college, some will be going back to high school, and at least a couple will be sticking with us. That means that while we tearfully say goodbye to most of our crew, we will be welcoming new members as well. This farm would never work if we didn’t have great people working with us and we fully expect growing pains as new crew members learn the ropes.

We are excited to tell you that we officially had our largest single-day produce harvest on Monday this week. We picked cantaloupe, pickles, squash, zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and more than 4,000 pounds of potatoes! All of this is hand-picking, labor-intensive harvesting of produce.

Make sure you check out the blog pictures this week – we have a great machine from the 1930’s with steel wheels that we have modified, as it was originally pulled behind a horse, but we now pull it behind the tractor. The machine digs up the potatoes, rolls them over a steel chain and dumps them back out on the ground. We follow this machine by crawling on our hands and knees, picking up each potato, inspecting it for quality, and putting it in a 5 gallon bucket. We then load *heavy* buckets onto a trailer, drive them back to the shed and do a combination of hand washing and machine washing of potatoes before sorting and weighing them. All-in-all, it’s a rewarding, but exhausting process.

It’s also exciting to tell you that we will begin harvesting water melons at the end of the week! We’ve ravenously eaten the first couple early melons at our house -to make sure they are top quality, of course 🙂 We are harvesting cantaloupe like gang busters, but the plants themselves are not looking great. It seems the plants may die earlier than normal this year, so it may be pertinent to eat your melons now. Hard squash and pumpkins are looking excellent for winter. There are some fruits on the vine and these plants look better than any other hard squash crop we’ve had.

Thank you for your continued support of the CSA. We hope you are all enjoying the produce.

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew

Week 10 – 2015 CSA

We are excited to tell you that we finally caught a rain on the farm. The storms have mostly been going around us since early July, but we got a little over an inch on Tuesday morning. There is nothing better than being able to say it rained in August!

To a certain extent, we think Ryan may have unintentionally made it rain. He and the crew loaded up a ¼ mile of pipe to lay out more irrigation. This made the hornets, who had made a home in the pipe, unhappy and ended up with two people getting stung. We had also talked about cutting hay – another activity that typically results in rain around these part (mostly because you don’t want it to rain on your cut hay)!

This rain will help us make a great ~~pigweed~~ broccoli and cauliflower crop. At the end of last week we were able to get in the field to do some transplanting. We put out about 8,000 broccoli and cauliflower plants for the fall. Some of this will go to grocery stores and some will make its way to you and the markets.

In the dark morning hours, when the lightning kept us from working outdoors, we were able to get into the greenhouse and clean out (get rid of) the tomato plants. About an hour later we came back in and seeded cucumbers for the fall. This is the first year we have trellised plants in the green house and we think its been going pretty well.

The rain also gave us the opportunity to finish cleaning up one of the high tunnels. When crops start to go downhill or have been harvested completely, it’s time to move on. The crew cleans up the remaining crops. We then come in and rototill the tunnel – it’s amazing how much soil compaction can occur simply from foot traffic in walking paths! The plan is to then re-plant the tunnel with orange and red beets, carrots, lettuce, spinach, and green beans.

We’ve spent a lot of time harvesting over the last week. The zucchini and cucumbers are coming off great, tomatoes have picked up in production, beets are looking good, and we were even able to pick 330 eggplant. We had planned to give you a five pound bag of potatoes this week, but because of the rain, we were unable to get them dug. So instead you will be getting cucumbers and zucchini to make up the difference. We promise the potatoes will be coming soon.

We are once again participating in the Seward County Fair. As in Butler County, Katie is again the superintendent in Horticulture. Hopefully, there will again be great participation.

Your Farmers,

Ryan, Katie, and Crew

WHAT’S IN THIS WEEK’S BAG?

Sweet Corn

Peppers

Zucchini

Cucumber

Tomato

Cantaloupe*

Yellow Squash**

*Only in the Full Share

**Only in the Partial Share